I agree that in creating Reuven there is indeed no beneficence to Reuven in this act. But it is still indeed a good act.
A good act is not necessarily dependent on benefiting someone. Rather, a good act is good because it adds more good, or in other words, a good act is good because it is good.

I prefer to take as an example an act that harms Reuven (whenever people talk about evil, our moral instinct always jumps in 🙂 )
If we create a situation in which Reuven gets electrocuted intensely every quarter hour. (And if you say he knows no other reality, then let us create him together with a memory as if he were 30 years old and had once had a normal and pleasant life.)
Now we have two alternatives: 1. Reuven would not have existed at all. 2. Reuven will exist. Your claim is that creating option 2 is not a worsening for Reuven, since worsening means creating a state that makes his previous condition worse. And indeed there is no worsening here.
But my claim is that there is an evil act here. Because it adds suffering to the world for no benefit.
True, there is no worsening, but there is an evil act.

I think these things are simple. If the Rabbi did not understand, I would be happy to explain again if necessary.
It is also possible that the Rabbi actually agrees that there can be a good act that does not include beneficence to someone; I just did not understand that from your words there in the article, where it seemed from what you wrote that you were speaking generally.

Best regards,
Moshe Kurtz

I am not sure I understood, but I will try to respond.
If you are speaking about the very creation of the electrocuted creature, there is in that no worsening or beneficence, neither to him nor to the world. But of course, to electrocute him once he already exists (even if that begins with the very start of his existence) is evil. By the same token, benefiting someone who already exists is beneficence, but his very creation is not beneficence.

If I understood you correctly, you want to distinguish between bringing someone new into the world and the conditions in which he lives.
That is, we would divide Reuven’s creation into two parts that happen simultaneously:
1. Bringing Reuven into the world—and that is a neutral act; you did not benefit him relative to his previous state. 2. If his creation includes great suffering, for example in a case where he is immediately electrocuted upon creation, or born with constant pain (and remembers a false reality without pain)—with respect to that part, you indeed performed an evil act.
So that even according to your words, there can be a moral act within creation that is realized only through the content the creator “poured into” that being. However, bringing the being to life is amoral.

My claim is different. I claim that one should distinguish between “an act that includes beneficence to someone” and “a good act.”
Although every act of beneficence is a good act, there may be a case of a good act even without actual beneficence to someone. And an example of that is the creation of a being. In creating Reuven you did not benefit him, but you did a good act. (Or evil, alternatively.) If great good can arise later as a result of this act.
And this also seems to be implied in Genesis: as it says in the book of Genesis, on each of the first days after God created something, He saw His creation and behold, it was good. Because that creation made possible a great deal of good that would come in the years that followed. True, there was no beneficence *to someone* in the act of creation itself. But it was indeed a good act. Because it had the potential to benefit.
Another example: when I see someone who fell in the street and I run to help him, from the very moment of running I am already doing a good act even though there is not yet actual beneficence. Why is this called good? Because when I treat him I will benefit him.
That is, a good act is already called good now on account of the possible future beneficence (that I will actually help him).

Best regards,
Moshe Kurtz

Would the Rabbi arrange a match for his daughter with someone who created an electrocuted creature? According to your words it comes out that he would, because this is a person who did nothing wrong.

You knew whom to ask and when, since with him there is no longer the deficiency of “it is not practiced and not accepted.” Analyze that carefully.

Moshe, I already answered that. You assume that the whole world already exists and there is beneficence toward it. And I ask: with respect to the creation of the world itself, whom did it benefit? It seems to me we have exhausted this.

Yosef, absolutely not, because the electrocution is to harm that person. His very creation is neutral.

David, ???

It absolutely did not benefit anyone! I completely agree with the Rabbi on that. But creation is still a good act. (Of course it depends on the case, whether he created a good reality or a bad one.)
Why does the Rabbi want to connect a good act to actual beneficence?
A parable for what this is like:
When I see someone who fell in the street and I run to help him, from the very moment of running I am doing a good act even though there is no actual beneficence yet. Whom am I benefiting by running for him? Yet this is still called a good act.

Does the Rabbi accept what I am saying? It seems to me we are spinning our wheels without a real disagreement. We both agree that creation is not a beneficence to someone. But my question is whether the Rabbi also sees it as a good act. That is, from the side of the creator and not from the side of the recipient.

Best regards,
Moshe Kurtz

And to that I answered no. Running in order to benefit someone is a good thing because in the end there is beneficence, and the desire motivating it is the desire to benefit. But if creation benefits no one, I do not see why we should regard it as something good.

So you accept that there can be an action that is called good only if in the end there is an intention of actual beneficence.
And at this point the second part of the answer comes in: when there is an act of creation (which is basically neutral), and the creator had already planned before the creation that after the being is actually created it will receive an action that benefits it (for example, an enormous gift), then the process of creation itself is already called good, because it is part of a process at the end of which beneficence is planned.
As in the example of that person who runs toward the one who fell—his running is already called a good action.

P.S.
Here I wrote a side of the argument that I did not write earlier in the message about Genesis, namely that there is planning for future beneficence to the created being. If the Rabbi accepts my argument here, I will also try to show that sometimes creation is called good even without such future planning.
Best regards,
Moshe Kurtz

I do not agree. If at the time one plans to benefit there is no one toward whom this is directed, then it is not beneficence. This is a matter of semantics, so the discussion is pointless. What I mean to say is that it is not beneficence to anyone. If you want to call such a thing beneficence, that is a matter of definition, and I do not see what difference it makes.

I am absolutely not calling the creation of the being beneficence for it, but rather that the creator did a good act (without beneficence to someone) because in the end beneficence is planned (after the being exists it will receive a great gift).
As in the parable of the person who runs toward the fallen one. I just hold that the fallen person need not actually exist in reality at the moment of running. Rather, even if our person is running to help someone who is about to fall, even though at the moment he still has not fallen, and when he gets to the incident he will help him—already from the moment of the initial running he has done a good act, because he plans to benefit at the future level.

In any case, I would be glad to understand why in one of your first comments here you wrote that there can be an act that is evil together with the creation itself—quote:
“If you are speaking about the very creation of the electrocuted creature, there is in that no worsening or beneficence, neither to him nor to the world. **But of course, to electrocute him once he already exists (even if that begins with the very start of his existence) is evil**. By the same token, benefiting someone who already exists is beneficence, but his very creation is not beneficence.”
Why, according to your view, is it evil to create a damaged and disabled being (with a memory that once it was not like that)? After all, you did not cause him any evil relative to his previous state. For worsening someone (according to your view) is to do something to an existing person that makes his condition worse compared to his previous state. But when he is created disabled, there is no worsening here…

Best regards,
Moshe Kurtz

This discussion is going nowhere. Everything has already been explained. I also do not understand what the practical difference is in these semantic discussions.
My claim is that you can call beneficence whatever you want. Beneficence to a person is only beneficence to an existing person, and it is measured against his condition without the beneficence. Creating someone in a good or bad condition—the creation itself is not beneficence and not worsening. The beneficence and worsening with respect to him are beneficence and worsening with respect to him.
State A is better than state B if they can be compared. It is impossible to compare a state in which a person does not exist to a state in which a person exists. It is possible to compare a state in which a person exists in a good condition to a state in which a person exists in a less good condition.
I think we have exhausted this.

Indeed, the discussion is stuck, and therefore I only asked that you explain why, according to your view, you see creating someone in a bad condition (for example, disabled) as an evil act, while throughout your whole approach you attribute an act called good or evil only as a change from his previous condition:
Quote from your words: “But of course, to electrocute him once he already exists (****even if that begins with the very start of his existence****) is evil”

The only practical difference is to explain the verses in Genesis, to fit with the broad Jewish approach—from Saadia Gaon to Ramchal—that there is indeed good (not necessarily beneficence) in the creation of the world, and to fit with the approach that claims this is indeed the purpose of creation.
And moreover, this approach, as I understand it, exists not only in Judaism but in many other religions as well.

Best regards,
Moshe Kurtz

Creating someone who suffers is perhaps something evil. But it is not a worsening for that person in the comparative sense (relative to his alternative condition, because there is no such condition). If there were an option to create him in a good condition, then perhaps the worsening would be a worsening for him.
I do not see any practical difference. This is semantics alone.

If so, then creating someone in a good condition is indeed also a good thing (not in the comparative sense, of course).
And if it were possible to create him also in a bad condition, then perhaps the beneficence would be beneficence to him.
I do not see any reason to distinguish here between bad creation and good creation.

Whether fitting with the Torah and the medieval authorities is a practical difference—that is a different discussion.

Best regards,
Moshe Kurtz

Indeed נכון. But this is semantics, as stated. In my view, the created being is not supposed to thank the Creator for that (except in ontological gratitude and not ethical gratitude, as I explained in my article).

These are two separate laws/categories, from the side of the creator and from the side of the created being.
At most we will become a bit Leibowitzian about it.
In any case, I asked only from the side of the creator, because from your words it seemed that Michael made no distinction.

Best regards,
Moshe Kurtz

Hello,
Quote from the Rabbi’s comment above:
“Creating someone who suffers is perhaps something evil. But it is not a worsening for that person in the comparative sense (relative to his alternative condition, because there is no such condition). If there were an option to create him in a good condition, then perhaps the worsening would be a worsening for him.”

Sorry for reopening the discussion, but in retrospect I think I did not understand the last part of what you said here, and I would be glad if the Rabbi could explain it,

In the comment, the Rabbi distinguished that there may be two types of evil acts in creating someone in a bad condition:
1. When it is impossible to create the deficient created being in a good condition, but only in a bad one, then his creation is “only” an evil act toward him but is not a worsening in the comparative sense.
2. When it would have been possible to create the created being in another way (in a good condition), then the worsening is a worsening for him.

I did not understand why the two cases are different from one another (the first is called only an evil act and the second is worsening). After all, in both of them it would have been possible not to create him, and there is no comparative dimension between the states of the created being.

Best regards,
Moshe Kurtz

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